


a solid name

by Siria



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: cliche_bingo, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-30
Updated: 2009-08-30
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:04:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By late July, Evelyn's belly was swollen high and drum-taut and sleep was beyond her. She found herself staying awake til one in the morning, two, cleaning kitchen counter-tops that were already spotless and ironing crisp folds into Donald's newly-laundered underwear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a solid name

By late July, Evelyn's belly was swollen high and drum-taut and sleep was beyond her. She found herself staying awake til one in the morning, two, cleaning kitchen counter-tops that were already spotless and ironing crisp folds into Donald's newly-laundered underwear. When she finally climbed the stairs to the bedroom, she would lie in bed next to Donald's snoring bulk and stare out the window as the moon moved slowly through the sky. The nights were the longest part of her wait now—her legs ached, the humid weather made sweat pool uncomfortably beneath her milk-swollen breasts, and the baby shifted restlessly inside her, tiny heels kicking against her rib cage—and Evelyn often found herself stroking her belly, silently urging the baby to come out, out, _out_.

Donald's mother had come over for dinner that evening, sitting ram-rod straight at the dining room table and looking askance at each dish that Evelyn had brought out from the kitchen and at the new carpet on the living room floor, though Evelyn knew there was nothing for Charlotte McKay to find fault with—Evelyn prided herself on her house-keeping, ridding her house of dirt with the same diligence she had shown in the office when she'd still been Donald's research assistant. The conversation at the table had been almost non-existent. Donald shovelled his way through a heaped mound of Evelyn's special tuna and green bean casserole, Evelyn pushed her food across her plate; the only sounds were Donald's grunts when answering his mother's questions about his progress at work, and Charlotte's pointed remarks to Evelyn about her views on the proper way to raise an infant.

"You'll do the respectful thing and call the child Meredith, of course," Charlotte said with a tight smile on her face, "after Donald's father," as if Evelyn wouldn't know who that was.

Evelyn took a sip from her water glass. "It might be a girl," she said non-commitally.

Charlotte snorted. "You're carrying high. Everyone knows that means a boy, and a first-born boy will naturally carry on his family's legacy."

Donald looked up from his plate at that, blinking behind from behind his glasses, his cheeks bulging with chewed food, his hair as mussed and unbrushed as ever. "Well now, Mother, I don't know that that's really accurate."

Evelyn looked up at him and for a moment, she hoped, but then he continued, "I don't think there's any scientific proof that carrying the foetus high means that it will turn out to be male," and she'd stood to carry the used plates back into the kitchen rather than sigh in disappointment.

She was still awake when the clock on her night-stand softly chimed five that morning, idly wondering what labour would feel like; what it would be like to sleep once more without her child curled close in her belly; if she would be able to love it with the kind of fierce, frantic love she'd always wanted to feel. Evelyn had plans for her child, such hopes, and it would have a new name—Valerie or Jeanette for a girl; Jason for a boy, maybe, or Mark—and a life unbounded by others' expectations, not being like their father, not ending up like their mother. It was a strange thought to make her happy, but it did; and as the dawn sky slowly leached itself to a pale shade of grey, Evelyn finally dozed, curled up around her child with a smile flickering on her face.


End file.
